Biltong vs Jerky: They're Not the Same Thing

Walk into any gym café or health food shop in the UK and you’ll see biltong and jerky sitting next to each other like they’re the same product.

They’re not. One is a centuries-old cured meat. The other is a cooked snack with a marketing budget.

Here’s what actually separates them.

The process is completely different

This is the one that matters most.

Jerky is cooked. It goes into a smoker or oven and gets hit with high heat — usually somewhere between 70–90°C for several hours. The heat kills bacteria, drives off moisture, and firms up the texture. Fast, scalable, shelf-stable.

Biltong is never cooked. It’s cured with vinegar and salt first, then hung in moving air at room temperature for several days. No heat at all. The vinegar lowers the pH, the salt draws out moisture, and the airflow does the rest over time. It’s the same principle South Africans have used for centuries — long before anyone had an oven.

That single difference — heat versus time — is why everything else about them is different too.

What’s actually in them

Classic biltong has five ingredients: beef, salt, brown vinegar, coriander seeds, and black pepper. That’s it. No preservatives, no stabilisers, no sugar. The vinegar and salt are the preservatives.

Jerky ingredient lists are longer. Because high heat strips out a lot of the natural flavour, manufacturers add it back in — usually with soy sauce, sugar, smoke flavouring, and a handful of additives to hit the right texture and shelf life. It’s not necessarily bad, but it’s a different category of product.

The texture

Jerky is chewy. The heat breaks down the muscle fibres and removes most of the moisture, which leaves something dense and a bit flat. You’ll work your jaw.

Biltong cuts clean. Because it was never cooked, the meat keeps its natural structure. A properly made slice has give, a bit of marbling, and depth. Wet biltong (taken off the dryer earlier) is almost like a dense steak. Dry biltong (left longer) snaps cleanly and has concentrated flavour.

Once you’ve had good biltong, jerky’s texture is hard to go back to.

The nutrition

This is where it gets stark.

	Biltong (25g)	Jerky (25g)
Protein	15–17g	10–12g
Carbs	0–1g	5–8g
Sugar	0g	4–7g
Additives	None	Varies

Jerky’s sugar content comes from the marinades — teriyaki, honey, brown sugar. It’s not huge in absolute terms, but it adds up if you’re eating it regularly as a protein snack.

Biltong’s macros are almost entirely protein. For anyone eating low-carb, tracking macros, or just trying to eat cleaner, the difference is meaningful.

So why does jerky dominate the market?

Scale and shelf life, mostly.

Jerky’s cooking process is fast and standardised — you can produce it at industrial volume and it stays shelf-stable for a long time. Biltong needs several days of drying, which is harder to automate at scale. The big food companies went with jerky because it fits their supply chains.

The result is a UK market where most of what’s labelled “biltong” is either jerky under a different name, or a rushed version that’s been dried at higher temperatures to speed up the process. Real biltong — slow, cold, properly cured — is still mostly made by small independent producers who haven’t optimised it into something else.

The short version

If you want a quick cooked snack with bold flavour and a long shelf life, jerky is fine for what it is.

If you want clean protein, minimal ingredients, and something that tastes like actual meat — biltong, made properly, isn’t comparable to jerky. It’s a different product.

That’s what we make at Kured. Traditional method. Five ingredients. No shortcuts on drying time.